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Monday, October 19, 2015

Playoffs!

Major League Baseball is down to the final four: Kansas City, Toronto, Chicago Cubs and New York Mets.

I sort of gave up on baseball right around the time my team, Oakland, gave up on its season. You may ask why I'm an Oakland fan. The reason is simple. I got interested in baseball in the early 70's, when Oakland was doing well. I've been with them ever since, although it hasn't been easy. As I noted weeks ago, if a team isn't in contention at the All Star break these days, it sells off all its good players and goes through the motions for the second half of the season.

It's nice to have a team to root for as we go through the championship series and World Series. It's tough this year. I've never liked the Cubs or the Mets. The Cubs are a bit tempting. Manager Joe Maddon comes from Hazleton. Toronto? A Canadian team? Please!

That leaves Kansas City. I can live with them. KC was in the World Series last year. It was decades of losing before that. I always root for the underdog, so I guess KC is this year's choice.

Some other baseball notes: FOX has been using Pete Rose on its pre and post game shows. My hand can't reach for the remote fast enough. I wish MLB would settle on a couple of networks for post season play. Games were all over the place and difficult to find.

It looks like there will be a rule change during the off season, eliminating the Chase Utley type slide that took out Ruben Tejada. Bad idea. Utley was just playing hard, trying to break up the double play. I'm sorry Tejada came out of it with a broken leg, but that's the way the game has been played for a very long time.

Bottom line: I'm hoping for a seven game World Series because, in my opinion, there is no more exciting day or night in sports than the seventh game of a World Series.